Without any doubt, WhatsApp is one of the most used social media platforms. Almost everyone has a WhatsApp account to share a lot of stuff with friends. WhatsApp has an amazing feature called Groups. With this feature, WhatsApp allows you to broadcast messages with a group of people at the same time. You can either create a group or be a member of a group. Also, anyone can add you to be a part of their group. As this is highly insecure, WhatsApp provides an option to report any group. This means that, if you find the content in any group to be abusive or spam, you can report or complain to WhatsApp. But, what if you accidentally report a group, but later want to undo all of that?
What Happens When You Report a WhatsApp Group?
Before going to the part of getting back your group, let us first know what happens when you report a group, or what happens when someone else reports your group. Firstly, there are two options when you report a group – Report, and Report and Exit. When you just Report a group, a complaint will be sent to WhatsApp. You will still be a member of the group, and you will keep receiving messages from the group. But if you choose the second option, a complaint will be sent to WhatsApp and you will be removed from the group at the same time.
Once a group is reported, WhatsApp keeps a close watch on that group for any disturbing or suspicious activity. If it finds any such content, it takes necessary action – which may even involve deleting or banning the group. However, WhatsApp does not take any action immediately after the group is reported. It takes a little time to analyze the group and performs security measures only after that.
How Can You Restore a Reported WhatsApp Group?
As mentioned earlier, when your WhatsApp group is reported, WhatsApp may ban or delete your group. This means that you will lose all of its contents once it gets deleted. You will also receive a warning message, mentioning that your group was reported. So, what should you do if all content of your group gets erased? How will you get back all of those deleted messages and media? Is there any way to regain access to your group, or to activate your reported WhatsApp group again? We will discuss all of it in this article. Keep reading to find all the possible scenarios and their respective solutions –
Case 1 – You Accidentally Reported a WhatsApp Group
In WhatsApp Group options, the Exit Group and the Report Group options are adjacent, and it is really confusing. Sometimes, we may tend to accidentally Report a group, instead of exiting it. So, if you have accidentally reported an innocent WhatsApp Group and want to cancel your report, here is what you should do. This method works only if you clicked on Report Group, instead of Report and Exit Group. If you have just reported a group, it means that you still have access to that group. Do the following to cancel your report –
- Open WhatsApp and open the group that you have previously reported.
- Click on the name of the group, and you will see various group options.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the group, and click on Undo Report.
That’s it. Your report request to WhatsApp will be canceled immediately. However, if you want to cancel your report after a long time since you submitted your report, it becomes useless. This is because, WhatsApp is probably keeping a close watch on that group, or even has already taken necessary actions.
Case 2 – Restore All Chats in Your Reported WhatsApp Group From A Backup
To protect you from technical glitches and accidental data losses, WhatsApp provides a feature to back up all your important files and messages. You have an option to back up your data periodically, as once in a month, once in a week, or even once every day. If you have enabled this periodic backup facility, then you can easily recover your reported and deleted WhatsApp group. Just follow all the steps given below, and you can easily get your data back in no time –
Method 1 – By Installing WhatsApp again
- Uninstall WhatsApp on your device.
- Now, re-install it again and open the app.
- Once the app opens up, you will be asked whether you want to restore your previous data. Click on Yes.
- Now, select the particular backup file that you want to use to restore all chats.
- WhatsApp takes some time to load all your backed up data. After this, all your chats and groups are restored again.
Method 2 – By Clearing out your WhatsApp
If you don’t want to uninstall and reinstall your WhatsApp again, then you can go for this method. In this method, you will be clearing out all your WhatsApp app data from your device settings. All other steps are the same as above. To give you a clear picture, we have given the step-by-step instruction on how to do this –
- Go to your Device Settings (You will probably find it in your app drawer or by sliding the screen down if you are using an Android device).
- Scroll down, find and select the App Manager or My Apps. (If you don’t find this, look for an option that says More Settings or something like that).
- A list of all the applications you own appear here. Find and open WhatsApp from this.
- Once in there, your app data and cache data will be displayed. Clear all of them.
- After this, follow all the steps from Step 3 of Method 1 in this section, and you are good to go.
That’s it. You will now have all the chats and groups in your WhatsApp, just like the time you backed them up. However, if your device has backed up data after deleting the particular group or chat, you will not get your chats back.
Before you choose your backup file, make sure that it is from the period between the time that you were a member of the group and the time that you reported and exited the group. Also, remember that any further conversations that took place after your backup file will disappear after restoration. So, take appropriate measures if you want to retain that data and then load your backup file.
